Confronting Middle Age With Songs And Pluck

By KEVIN SACK

Published: August 14, 2001

Correction Appended

MELBOURNE, Fla., Aug. 9—
At 43, Mary Chapin Carpenter has seen some life. There have been streaks of breathtaking creativity followed by spells of bewildering frustration. There have been profound love affairs and wrenching breakups. There has been both joy and the darkest sadness.

In ''Time*Sex*Love,'' (Sony) her first recording of new music in five years, Ms. Carpenter has harnessed the contradictory emotions of adulthood and produced what is essentially a concept album about middle age. Throughout the recording, which was released in late May, she challenges her listeners, and herself, to live life fully and urgently, to take risks of the heart, to abandon ambition in exchange for simple pleasures, to be philosophical about mistakes and to recognize that much is beyond control.

She writes with some bitterness, bordering at times on self-loathing, about her powerlessness against the force of sexual obsession, and she uses her music to reach a reckoning with old lovers and old loves. Above all she recognizes that much in life is received rather than taken, and while she does not encourage passivity, she does encourage acceptance. ''Accidents and inspiration, lead you to your destination,'' she writes in ''The Long Way Home,'' the album's anthem. In the next verse, she advises, ''See your life as a gift from the great unknown, and your task is to receive it.''

Such themes are not the conventional province of popular music, although other aging writers like Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Bonnie Raitt and Emmylou Harris have also experimented with them. Among other things they defy the marketing requirement that music must, in order to be commercially successful, speak to the youthful demographic that drives radio airplay.

But in the hands of Ms. Carpenter, one of popular music's most introspective and literate lyricists, the focus on experience and memory at midlife takes on a particular poignancy. And in a lengthy recent interview, backstage before a concert, she said she had taken special satisfaction from the 15 songs on ''Time*Sex*Love'' because they exude an authenticity that could only be achieved with the passage of years.

''It's the idea of embracing your time, as opposed to walking around sort of fearful or hunched over and intense about not being young anymore or not at the top of the charts anymore,'' said Ms. Carpenter, who has three performances in the New York metropolitan area this week (Tuesday at the Washington Township Center in Sewell, N.J.; Wednesday at Madison Square Garden; and Thursday at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Conn., all with Steve Earle opening). ''These are songs that I wouldn't have written 10 years ago, but they feel pretty right now.''

Ms. Carpenter, whose friends call her Chapin (her father's first name), has produced eight recordings in a 14-year career, scheduling a new release every two or three years until taking the five years she said she needed to write meaningful songs for ''Time*Sex*Love.''

It has been 12 years since she recorded her biggest seller, the triple platinum ''Come On Come On,'' which featured her cover of Lucinda Williams's ''Passionate Kisses'' and self-written hits like ''The Hard Way,'' ''He Thinks He'll Keep Her'' and ''I Feel Lucky.'' It has been six years since she won the last of her five Grammy awards, for best country album for ''Stones in the Road,'' which included another sassy hit, ''Shut Up and Kiss Me.''

The new recording, with its melded influences of country, folk and rock, is selling steadily, but not brilliantly, at least partly because it has received almost no support from either country or rock radio stations. That may be because Ms. Carpenter, whose crystalline alto has lost much of its twang over the years, is harder than ever to define stylistically. But, she reasons, it may also have much to do with her subject matter, and her steadfast resistance to manufacturing songs to appeal to 20-year-olds.

''No one has said that to me,'' she said of the lack of airplay for ''Time*Sex*Love,'' ''but it's not exactly about girls and cars.''

Ms. Carpenter, who has never married, prefers not to talk in great detail about her personal life. But she acknowledged that many of the songs on the recording had been informed by the end of an intense four-year romance.

''I think at our age, that's something that results in a lot of reckoning,'' she said. ''Because the idea of starting over, it's not so much frightening but it's exhausting. And even if you can summon up the optimism that, you know, I'll be able to meet someone else -- if that is indeed what you want, and certainly in my case I wanted that -- you just have to take so much on faith.''

There also has been a physical component to her musical coming of age. An athletic youngster, Ms. Carpenter has been beset by injuries since turning 40. She pulled two leg muscles, had back surgery for a herniated disk, and three weeks ago had knee surgery that forced her to play several concerts from a chair.

''Just not to be able to run,'' she said, ''it's really profound to me. It's a very different way of thinking about myself.''

Correction: August 15, 2001, Wednesday An article in the arts pages yesterday about the singer and songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter referred imprecisely to the dates of her concerts in the New York area this week. She performed last night at the Washington Township Center in Sewell, N.J., and is to appear tonight at Madison Square Garden and tomorrow at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Conn.